Highlights

Climatologists at Colorado State University are confirming what many Coloradans already suspect — almost the entire state is consumed by drought.

About 98 percent of the state is experiencing varying levels of drought, according to CSU, with the most severe in the Arkansas Basin, where drought ranges from D1, or “moderate” drought to D3, or “extreme.” Last summer’s Texas drought is also still affecting Colorado, CSU said.

A newer area of D2 or “severe” drought has recently been added to the Yampa/White Basin in northwestern Colorado due to lack of sufficient snowpack this season.

Most of the northeastern plains are designated as “abnormally dry.” Conditions changed drastically since October, when 60 percent of the state didn’t have any drought categories.

That has shrunk to 2 percent, said Nolan Doesken, the state climatologist who is based at CSU.

“Even though the reservoir levels are still strong and northeast Colorado soil moisture is still pretty good, we just don’t usually start out quite this warm and dry at this time — so this is very concerning,” Doesken said.

A note about identifying climate change impacts

Many events are linked to climate change by virtue of fitting a long-term trend. For example, the record-breaking “once in one thousand years” rains that drove the recent Nashville flood is part of the long-term trend of increasing heavy precipitation events in the Southeastern United States that has been fully documented and firmly attributed to climate change. While one cannot say with certainly that event was "caused" by climate change, one can and should say it is linked to climate change.